Above the trickling sound of the fountain, she heard the muted scrape of the sliding glass door opening onto the patio.
She didn’t need to see David standing in the deep shadows above her to become vividly aware of his presence. She felt his gaze fall on her like a touch in the starlight.
Her heart took one hard leap within her chest.
An alarm tried to make itself heard in the recesses of her mind.
The warning was drowned out in the rush of dark excitement, as primitive and powerful as the wild and pagan depths of the Colombian jungle, streaking through her.
She’d never wanted anything in this world more than she lusted right now to experience David Reid’s miraculous touch on every part of her. The soul-deep wanting flared out from her heart to take over her whole being.
She’d never been a seductress, but she knew exactly what she was doing when she set her feet on the blue painted floor of the pool and slowly uncurled from the water. With her back to the patio, she crooked her arms above her shoulders and lifted her hair to let the long, wet strands drift through her fingers.
David’s plan to bundle Cara into the car and drive her away from here blasted from his mind the moment he saw her.
The beauty of her slender form etched in moonlight and rising like some mythic water goddess from the shadowy pool held him transfixed. For a breathless moment, his lungs failed to expand. His heart to pump.
A man with an ounce of decency would turn and go back inside, he told himself. A man with a shred of honor left in him would call out and make his presence known.
He stood silent, rooted to the spot.
God help him! If he didn’t take her in his arms and feel her soften against him in the next minute he was liable to go berserk.
The graceful, languid movement of her arms, gestures as old as Eve, told him that she knew he watched her.
That heady observation joined forces with the unstoppable feelings she called up in him and compelled him slowly and irresistibly toward the small lagoon. He’d set his foot on the second stone step when she turned her head and looked up at him over her shoulder.
He felt the ground shift beneath his feet. Whether from another of the region’s continual earthquakes, or from the impact of her soft smile of silent invitation, he couldn’t tell.
Desire stormed through him, swamping his native caution, his fear that she might turn away from the ugliness of his body, his apprehension about what making love to her might do to him. The conviction that he wasn’t nearly good enough for her threaded into his mind. And fell before the vanquishing power of his need.
His entranced gaze fixed on the long, elegant curve of her back, on the flare of her hips veiled in sapphire water, he shucked off shoes and clothes.
Still holding her back to him, she hadn’t moved from the middle of the pool. Her fingers gently stirring the waters at her side, she waited for him.
Grateful for the darkness that cloaked his disfigured body, he lowered himself to the curved stone at the side of the pool and launched himself noiselessly into the tepid water. Not entirely certain he wasn’t simply indulging in another secret midnight fantasy, he swam the short distance toward her and rose to his feet half an arm’s length in back of her.
Slowly, half afraid the ravishing dream in front of him might dissolve into a mist, he reached out to touch his fingertips to the exquisite tracery of her spine.
She let out a low, shuddering sigh.
The satisfying sound of her pleasure made the whole miraculous scenario real. Her ardent responsiveness to his touch—his touch, no one else’s—brought him a rush of raw male power. Power that must have been there all along, but that he hadn’t been able to unlock.
He walked his fingers to the delicate, vulnerable curve of her neck, and started downward again, slowly counting off each of her vertebrae. His worshiping lips followed that entrancing track beneath the water to the last hard rounded nub of her backbone. Never before had he sought out intelligence on territory any more fascinating than this.
He smoothed his hands slowly up the supple column of her back. Over the beautiful turn of her shoulders. Down the trembling length of her arms.
“David,” she breathed. “David.”
Never had the name seemed so uniquely his as when it fell from her lips.
Realization erupted into his mind like a flare of white fire. The woman who filled his dreams was his. His to fully explore, to lovingly caress, to miraculously possess. His for the here and now. He’d deal with the pain of tomorrow when it came.
Not for a moment did he allow himself to believe that what he was doing was right for either of them. Especially not right for her. But he’d shot way beyond being able to factor right or wrong into his compulsive need.
He stepped closer, enclosing her in his arms and bringing his torso and thighs into direct contact with her back and hips. A film of cool water slicked the heat of her satiny nakedness.
The shiver that raced through her leapt from her body to his.
A blaze of sensation engulfed him. His whole body so long tight and cold turned molten. A slow hot surf of. thickened blood rolled through his veins and flooded his manhood.
A moan scraped up from the bottom of his chest.
Her head dropped back against him. She reached up to grasp his shoulders.
His foraging hands greedily encircled the soft, warm mounds of her breasts, the outline and weight of their luscious contours already etched into the skin of his palms. He rubbed them over her nipples. Her fingers spasmed over his shoulders. Her nails clawed into his skin. He didn’t mind the slight pain.
Only by reminding himself that he could return later and pay greater homage to the arousing loveliness of her breasts was he able to slowly move his hands down over the hard ridge of her rib cage to the dip of her narrow waist.
His fingers broke the surface of the water and found her navel. He lingered to investigate the tiny, perfectly sculpted hollow, then splayed his hands over the silken curve of her stomach.
Every inch of the flawless body that came under his searching touch notched his delight, his thirst for her, higher. And with every inch, his palms and fingers grew more sensitive, meticulously recording the smallest change in the texture of her skin, the slightest ripple of pleasure that moved through her.
What she was doing for him went way beyond allowing him to enjoy simple sexual pleasure again. In making love with him, she was opening areas of his soul locked tight for what felt to be ages.
Tingling heat gushed into his lips eager to map the same enrapturing sector as his fingertips.
He nuzzled his face into her wet hair. The intoxicating scent of her robbed his brain of any further ability to command his actions. Propelled solely by impulse of his dazzled senses, he bent his legs slightly to match his body to hers and drew her closer, fitting the enticing roundness of her bottom against his throbbing arousal.
His pulse thundered out a volley of short, hard beats. His hand skimmed downward to comb through the silky floss at the base of her torso.
His open mouth, pressed to the side of her neck, filled with the taste of sweet wild honey. The rapid flutter of her pulse registered on his tongue. The sweet intimacy of it almost brought him to his knees, and stoked a craving to taste all the secret places of her body. Before the night was through, he promised himself, he’d accomplish that mission.
His hand continued its entrancing journey over the tiny distance to the wet satin joining of her thighs. The merging that on her bed a few nights ago had been barriered from his direct touch.
A tremor raced through her. She made a sound like a small night bird’s cry.
A soul-deep ache to bury himself within the soft, healing loveliness of her took hold of him. Hauling in great lungfuls of heavy humid air, he battled with all his strength against the powerful urge to take her immediately. It was too soon. He wanted this experience to be as wonderful for her as he could make it. He wanted to imprint this one n
ight of love with him so deep in her soul, she’d never forget it.
As he never would. It was all he’d ever have of her.
His slight nudge turned her effortlessly in his arms. She pressed the fresh, pure sweetness of her naked body into him as easily as if she truly belonged to him.
A wild shudder of pleasure ripped intimately through him.
He vised her against him so tightly that not so much as a whisper of air could come between them and he claimed her mouth.
The searing contact of the womanly body branding his lit a fiery pleasure in his pulsing center. He tore his mouth from hers only to let his bursting lungs gasp in air. With feverish cries she frantically sought his mouth again and raked her nails over the newly sensitized skin of his back.
God, how he wanted. He burned with wanting. Every cell of his body was trembling crazy with want.
Her fingers scraped down his spine to his buttocks. Pure torture to feel their slow journey over the top of his thigh. Sweet agony to wait forever for the intimate touch he longed for.
Just as he was about to rasp out an order, her fingers stroked along his rigid length and closed his pulsing flesh within their velvet flame.
A strangled cry thrust up from his soul and burst out into the shivering night.
Her consent drawn indelibly upon his body in the language of love, he stretched them both out upon the water. Their gazes locked, their arms moving in sync, he swam with her to the side of the pool and swept her from the water. She felt light, buoyant in his arms. He set her down on the rounded edge of the long, smooth rock and gently lowered her into the slight hollow carved in the stone’s slanted surface.
She lay before him in silver rays of moonlight, clothed only in a transparent shimmer of water and a delicate filigree of shadows. With an angel’s smile, she held out her open arms for him.
He choked back a moan of awe, of wonder.
Chapter 12
He started an awkward scramble from the water to reach her. Instinct halted him.
Not on land. His first incredible union with the woman who’d grabbed onto his life with both gentle hands and wouldn’t let go should happen within the pool. In the water that sometimes allowed him almost to forget his broken body.
He moved back into the water and stood in front of her. Setting his hands at her waist, he slowly drew her up to face him. Without him speaking a word she seemed to understand what he wanted, and edged herself closer to the stone’s rim.
Fighting grimly to hold his raging need in check, he forced his hands to cup her beautiful face with the utmost gentleness. Shaking with the effort to keep himself from clamping his open mouth over hers and invading that sweet moist entrance to her body, he managed to do no more than reverently touch his lips to hers.
He hoped his tenderness was showing her that he viewed this lovemaking as something very far from the meaningless coupling he’d proposed at the village. He wanted her to know that he realized her loving generosity was bestowing something very special, very meaningful on him. She could have no idea how much this act of love meant to a man who hadn’t been able to bring himself to risk any intimate relations with a woman for almost two years.
He nudged apart her knees with his hips and fit himself between them.
Cooling water lapped at his legs.
Flame engulfed his throbbing center.
She drew her legs up on either side of his and tilted herself back a little, seeking their perfect position. The piercingly sensitive tip of his flesh slid over the soft, yielding center of her femininity.
His rasping moan built a chord with her tremulous cry. She gasped and trembled and clutched him.
The last of his control snapped. He spread his mouth wide over hers. The soft lush ripeness of her lips opened under his passionate onslaught. He plunged his tongue inside her. And craved as ardently as once he’d fought for life itself to drive another part of himself within her.
His whole body shaking in the violent grip of desire, he slid his hands beneath the silky firmness of her thighs and grasped the smooth rounds of her bottom to lift her onto him.
As wild now with need as he, she wound her arms tensely around his neck, her legs tightly around his hips. He braced her on the rock behind her and thrust himself into the burning mystery of her.
Never had he felt so consumed with pleasure, with a sense of fulfillment entirely new to him. Greater than the pleasure of sexual intimacy, oceans of satisfaction poured through him because this one particular woman above all others was sharing herself with him.
Her breasts were pressed against his. The furious throbbing of her heart matched the frenetic beating of his. Her rapid gasps rasped from her throat as quickly as his.
She ground herself against him, taking him deeper into the smooth, searing luxury of her body. Deeper still. He battled to keep himself from hurtling over the crest before he was sure she’d reached it.
Suddenly she bucked and bowed back into a quivering arc. And spasmed tightly around him.
What was left of his rationality shattered into a million tiny pieces of blissful sensation.
Mindless, he rode a pulsing crimson cloud of pleasure.
Cara dragged in great gulps of air as the scattered shards of her mind slowly wandered back from the ecstatic oblivion into which David had catapulted her.
Draped limply over his hard body, she had no strength left to cling to him. He, too, was gasping for breath as his heart and lungs like hers wound back to normal. His arms shivered with the exertion of holding them clenched around her to keep her from slipping down into the water.
She could stay like this forever, utterly replete, skin to naked skin with David, reveling in the wonder of feeling him still a part of her.
“Holding you like — like this feels — wonderful — ” he panted. “But you’ve completely demolished me—I can’t—can’t keep it up—any longer.”
His chest expanded on a deep inhalation and he backed her up to set her on the stone ledge. She found only enough strength to drag herself onto the more comfortable grass as David scrambled slowly from the water. He fell on his back next to her and turned his face to hers.
His mouth worked as he struggled to speak, but evidently he had exhausted his strength. She was happy to have him settle for staring deeply into her eyes. She couldn’t have answered him right now, anyway. In the dim light his eyes were hidden within dark shadowy triangles, but she could make out that the corners of his mouth were upturned.
She smiled back at him. Her hand dropped between them to the grass. He found it and tangled his fingers through hers.
The two of them lay together beneath a purple velvet sky shot through with diamonds. A gentle tropical breeze whispered over her cooling skin. The same breeze carried the soft strains of slow dance music being played somewhere inside the resort.
A sense of the utter rightness, of the utter inevitability of their joining cocooned her in a lovely feeling of complete satisfaction. The simple connection of his hand covering hers contented her in a way nothing else had for a very long time.
Not long, though, before that slight touch wasn’t nearly enough. Marvelous to be free to touch him as much as her heart desired. She smiled up at the stars and pondered how best to go about doing that.
David lay completely still. She heard his slow, shallow breathing, saw the slight rise and fall of his chest. She whispered his name. Nothing. He’d fallen asleep. That didn’t seem fair when a greedy desire to once more experience the wonder of having him inside her was again creeping through her.
That he remained dead to the world, though, did give her the chance to gaze her fill of him. Or rather of what she could see of him in the darkness. She propped herself up on an elbow and gazed down at his beautiful face.
Everything about him, the intriguing color of his eyes, the sexy shape of his mouth, the sound of his voice that played entrancing riffs down her spine had hooked on to her deepest being. And tonight she’d made the remarkable di
scovery that she fit to him as if her body had been custom-made for his.
There could be no more hiding from the truth. She’d come to Colombia to find the man she’d promised to marry and found the only man in the world she wanted to spend the rest of her life with.
She didn’t have to be told that it was stupid to love a man who didn’t want to be loved, but she was deeply in love with David Reid. It was clear to her now that love had begun to creep into her heart those first few conflicted minutes with him in the mountains. She couldn’t think how it happened. She certainly hadn’t planned it. But there it was: For all the complications it posed, her love for him was planted as immovable as Mount Everest in the middle of her life.
He’d staggered her with his dazzling sensitivity to her needs.
She’d expected that a man so blunt about his sexual desires, so full of anger, of hurt, would be rough, would take her quickly. But he’d spent long, delicious minutes offering her what felt like true tenderness, genuine caring.
David wasn’t in love with her. She wasn’t naive enough to believe that. But after what they’d just shared, she had to believe she did mean something to him. Her few intimacies with Tommy were quick exercises to satisfy his undemanding needs. David had transported her to a whole vibrantly different world. Her experience wasn’t great, but it sure felt to her that the two of them had done a lot more than just have sex. They’d truly made love.
Her heart swelled with affection for him. She wasn’t sure he realized how much he’d given her, how grateful she was that he’d gone out of his way to make her feel that he cherished her—at least for tonight. She wanted to give back to him that same kind of caring.
She stroked lightly across his breast to awaken him. He trembled slightly but his eyes remained closed.
His skin was still damp. In the darkness she skimmed her fingers down the long, hard line of his body from shoulder to foot. To her, nothing could mar his masculine beauty. Not the series of scars she could feel zigzagging from his hip to his left breast. Not the gouge in the muscle of his thigh that her fingers encountered, nor the ridge of the healed half-circle tear at his knee.
Unbroken Vows Page 18
